PM Shehbaz meets IDB president in Paris

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif met the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) President Dr Muhammad Al Jasser on Friday on the sidelines of the summit for a New Global Financial Pact being held in Paris.

The two were seen holding hands as the IDB president escorted PM Shehbaz out after the meeting.

They also exchanged a candid conversation where Al Jasser confessed his love for Pakistani mangoes that the PM promised to send to him as a gift.

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The premier also renewed the invitation to president IDB to visit Pakistan at his earliest convenience.

According to a statement released by the PM's Office, during the meeting, the two discussed the long-standing cooperation and engagement between Pakistan and IDB during the meeting.

They also took stock of the progress of various ongoing projects and exchanged views on new avenues of collaboration.

PM Shehbaz also thanked Dr Al Jasser on behalf of the government and people of Pakistan for IDB's participation in the International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan held in Geneva on January 9, 2023.

Lauding the bank for its commitment to provide $4.2 billion in support of Pakistan's post floods recovery, he acknowledged the personal contribution and leadership role of Dr Al Jasser in galvanising this huge volume of financial support.

PM Shehbaz also underscored that IDB's beneficial partnership with Pakistan will go a long way in helping the people of the country to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, and also support the sustainable development objectives of the government.

During the meeting, the IDB President was also briefed on the recently formed Special Investment Facilitation Council to streamline foreign investments in the country and provide a one-window solution to address all concerns of foreign investors.

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Notably, the PM is in Paris at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron, to participate in the New Global Financing Pact Summit being held on June 22-23.

At the summit, PM Shehbaz called on the international community to come up with a plan for fair, equitable, and judicious distribution of resources to ensure sustainable peace and harmony in the world.

However, while host country France pitched the conference as a consensus-building exercise, leaders are under pressure to produce clear outcomes from the two-day meeting as economies stagger under growing debt after successive crises in recent years.

The summit comes amid growing recognition of the scale of the financial challenges ahead, with warnings that the world's ability to curb global warming at tolerable levels is reliant on a massive increase in clean energy investment in developing countries.

One key announcement on the summit's first day on Thursday came from IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva, who said a pledge to shift $100 billion of liquidity-boosting "special drawing rights" into a climate and poverty fund had been met.

World Bank President Ajay Banga said the lender would introduce a "pause" mechanism on debt repayments for countries hit by a crisis so they could "focus on what matters" and "stop worrying about the bill that is going to come".

Separately, Senegal was promised 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) by a group of wealthy nations and multilateral development banks to help the west African country reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.

And Zambia, which defaulted on its debt after the Covid pandemic broke out, secured some financial relief as its main lender China and other creditors agreed to restructure $6.3 billion in loans.

On Twitter, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema called it a "significant milestone in our journey towards economic recovery & growth".

With input from AFP